Process 7: Finally comes us!

Hello my fellow chocolate lovers,

I am Takanori Chiwata, the chocolate engineer of COCONAMA CHOCOLATE.

Like our previous posts, I would like to carry on with “how do cacao beans become chocolate?”

Last time, I shared about how important the drying process is for the quality of cacao beans.

Finally from this post…Comes us!!

First, we start off from receiving the cacao beans.

We will be going to receive cacao beans weighing 60-70kg in jute bags.

Then, we will be going to checking the quality of the received cacao beans.

We cut about 50 cacao beans and check the contents of the beans, just like this.

If they have nice lines like this the beans are in good quality.

Some contents may have insects or growing mold just like this…

In worst-case scenario, if there are too many of these poor quality beans we may have to send them back.

After that, here comes the tasting.

We actually roast them and make them into chocolates to check the flavours.

The cacao beans will rarely have the same, or similar taste if they are harvested in a different year.

Just like wine, their taste will vary depending on the harvested year.

And this is where we take place.

We change the roasting and conching condition a little by little to create a similar flavour to our chocolates.(We will be talking about this in more detail in the near future)

This process is the most difficult  one out of all the others.

It is really not that easy to get a similar flavour… It really is not.

However, under such difficult circumstance, it is when we define the common sense we get closer to our ideal taste.

That pleasant feeling when you get the exact flavour you wanted is really one of a kind. That feeling strives us to put in further effort to making chocolates!

During the test, although it tastes completely different from ours, we sometimes end up discovering super delicious chocolates too!

Just like that, another new chocolate will be given its place in this world.

Let’s call it a day now. Although I cannot get into the actual making process of chocolate yet, I’m glad that I had the chance to talk about the importance of preparation.

Next time, I will be finally talking about the roasting process to make chocolate. Don’t miss it!

With hopes that you will be able to encounter the perfect chocolate just for you,

Takanori Chiwata